A slippery slope

The Church has the duty to defend and promote life taking its mandate from John 10:10: "I came that they may have life and have it to the full." The Church teaches that the human being is an integral whole of body and spirit. Human sexuality, pregnancy, and parenthood are a call to loving and responsible stewardship and children are a gift from God with inherent and inalienable rights. When such basics are not respected, we fall into a slippery slope from a culture of life towards one of death.

The proposed reproductive health bill now pending in Congress represents this a slippery slope even while it includes legitimate concerns like the needs of nursing mothers; maternal, infant and child health and nutrition; end to violence against women and children; etc. I say this for a variety of reasons. First, it puts the cart before the horse by insisting on population control as prerequisite to development.

The latter, however, is the result of good governance; this, in turn, depends on principled politics. Studies show that for every P100 in government budget for projects, P60 is lost to corruption. How many schools, livelihood projects, houses, etc. would this have been? What need to be controlled are not the poor but those who misuse public funds. Second, what really is the population growth rate? Is it really true that it would still be centuries before we enter into a population winter where a negative growth rate becomes irreversible?

Third, the bill strongly reinforces a contraceptive mentality. But doesn't the latter open the doors to abortion? How about studies showing 50% of all abortions in the USA resulting from failed contraceptive use? One asks how many of the 50% of couples of reproductive age in the Philippines who use condom also resort to abortions? Fourth, despite the bill's description of abortion as a crime punishable by law, one gets the uneasy feeling that this is really a Trojan horse. Why the use of the term "reproductive health rights" when this includes abortion in international legal parlance, as a simple "google search" would yield? This is not to mention anatomical manipulations, like the IUD, that really cause death to a living being.

Fifth, the bill also does not respect the consciences and culture of our people. Parents are just an afterthought in the values education of their children. The bill requires no spousal consent for ligation and vasectomy for any person of legal age. It requires mandatory sex education from Grade 5 to Fourth Year High School with topics the Church finds offensive. Larger families no longer receive benefits with the inclusion of a very questionable recommendation of two children per family. The list goes on.

Sixth, those who dissent are penalized: "Any person who maliciously engages in disinformation about the intent or provisions of this Act" shall be penalized and a public official dismissed from service. So if all that the bill seeks is to provide information and options to all its citizens, then why resort to such an iron fist? The bill, then, tries hard to appear tolerant when, in truth, it is not.

I could not help but imagine an Orwellian specter where government controls every facet of life, including the bedroom. It seems some people in Congress have decided to become part of "Big Brother" production, only that the all-seeing eye is more malevolent than benevolent. One cannot help but sense that it is not really about alleviating the plight of the poor as it is an unseen hand imposing a foreign ideology on us and prescribing remedies threatening moe ill than good. The poor are just used as an excuse.